A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



The abbot and all the officials were exhorted 

 to use moderation. The infirmary, it was 

 stated, was built in an improper and base position, 

 so that the sick brethren were in danger from the 

 stench and infected atmosphere ; if that was so, 

 then, as soon as the means of the house permitted, 

 another infirmary was to be built. 



Markets and sales in the cemetery of the 

 church were inhibited, and linen cloths were not 

 to be bleached there by women. 



All the monks were to be uniform as to habit 

 according to the old fashion, and neither to 

 introduce any novelties, nor to sell their habits, 

 but they were to receive necessary habits from 

 one of the vestiarii, and the old ones were to 

 be given to poor persons asking for them. 



On 27 December 1335^^ Archbishop Melton 

 reported to the abbot and convent, that at his 

 recent visitation of their monastery he had 

 found six of their number gravely defamed of 

 crimes and excesses mentioned in the articles he 

 sent to them. 



Adam de la Breuer was defamed super lapsu 

 carnis with Alice, daughter of Roger the Smith 

 of Selby, and of incontinence with her sister 

 also. He was commonly drunk, riotous and 

 a sower of discord among the brethren. He 

 gossiped carelessly and improperly with women 

 in the cloister, church, and elsewhere, and 

 particularly with the before-mentioned Alice and 

 her sister, to the scandal of the order. More- 

 over he abstracted difiFerent things belonging to 

 the monastery, having secret little places in his 

 clothes adapted for his thefts. He had abused 

 every one of the monks who had told the truth 

 at the visitation. He was wont to leave the 

 quire before the conclusion of divine service, not 

 having sought, or obtained, leave to do so. He 

 sent alms and other goods of the house to the 

 women with whom he had been often con- 

 victed. 



Thomas de Hirst sent alms and gave other 

 aliments of goods of the house to Margaret the 

 maidservant of Felicia, and six other women 

 dwelling in the town of Selby. He behaved 

 lasciviously and dissolutely both in public and 

 occulte with women, by which means evil suspi- 

 cion had arisen within and without the monas- 

 tery. He also frequently furtively abstracted 

 difiFerent things belonging to the monastery. 



John de Whitgift frequently gossiped with 

 Margaret Mortimer and other women in the 

 church and elsewhere, contrary to his profession 

 and the honesty of religion. In addition, he 

 sent alms and other goods of the house to a cer- 

 tain suspected woman. 



Robert de Flexburgh was very spiteful and 

 malicious to his companions, calling them eaves- 

 droppers and liars. He had often been convicted 

 of incontinence with certain women of the 



" Vork Archiepis. Reg. sed. vac. fol. 206^. 



town, and he sent them alms and other goods of 

 the house. In spite of the inhibition of the sub- 

 prior and other members of the convent he had 

 not desisted from gossiping with suspected women, 

 publicly and occulte. 



Robert de Pontefracto sent presents and many 

 other goods belonging to the house to a certain 

 Maye de Pontefracto, owing to which the suspi- 

 cion of a carnal connexion between them had 

 arisen. Nicholas de Houghton was a sower of 

 discord among the brethren. He adhered too 

 much to, and gossiped with, a certain woman, 

 with whom he had been convicted and corrected 

 super lapsu carnis. The following penances were 

 to be imposed on these monks. 



Adam de la Breuer for a whole year was to 

 bewail his sins imprisoned in a building safe and 

 remote from the concourse of men, and especially 

 from the access of women to him. Each Wednes- 

 day and Friday he was to be taken to the chapter, 

 and from every one present he was, in a humble 

 manner, to receive a discipline, which done, he was 

 to return to his penance, and on those days was to 

 have bread, soup, and light ale, and on other 

 days the ordinary food as served to other monks, 

 delicacies being, however, excepted. 



Brothers Thomas de Hirst, John de Whitgift, 

 Robert de Flexburgh, for the same period, were 

 not to go outside the cloister, or in any way to 

 talk with women, without the special licence 

 of the abbot or his vicegerent, and then openly 

 in the presence of two monks. On Wednesdays 

 and Fridays they were to have only bread, soup 

 and light ale, and in chapter to receive the 

 blows of discipline from all the convent. 



Among general defects the archbishop found 

 that the roofs of the conventual church were 

 very defective and that the latrina of the infir- 

 mary was so foul that the evil odour from it was 

 highly ofiFensive to persons sitting in the cloister. 



The year following ^^ the archbishop issued 

 another set of injunctions, many of them being 

 the common form of decrtta following a visita- 

 tion. He found the monastery heavily in debt, 

 and pensions, &c. were not to be granted, except 

 with consent of the convent, and special licence 

 of the archbishop. The bursars, cooks, and 

 other officers were to render yearly accounts to 

 the abbot or his deputy, and certain of the more 

 discreet members of the convent. Women were 

 not to bleach clothes in the churchyard. No 

 monk was to accept money for his garments, 

 and the sick were to be properly attended to. 



This appears to be the last recorded visitation 

 of Selby in the Registers, but in a volume in the 

 Record Office entitled ' Registrum de Tempore 

 Galfridi de Gaddesby," Abbatis de Seleby,' there 



" Ibid. Melton, fol. 209^. 



"Geoffrey de Gaddesby was abbot 1342-64. 

 The volume is sometimes wrongly alluded to as a 

 ' Selby Chartulary.' 



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